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Edibles Advocate Alliance AND Buy Local Connecticut: Shared Harvest is partnering with the CT Department of Environmental Protection's CT Material Trader to steward CT’s future by keeping food and other materials out of the waste stream.
Staggering are the statistics.
In Connecticut, according to data reports sent to the DEP, we only recycle an average of 1.35 pounds of waste per person, per day. Additionally, we only grasscycled and composted 23.28 pounds per person, per year. To put that into perspective, the United States sends approximately 230 million tons of stuff to the garbage bin – and on average, we generate 4.6 pounds of garbage per person per day.
In Connecticut, that means every person sends 3.2 pounds of goo into the trash on a daily basis. There are estimates that indicate that we could reuse and recycle more than 70% of what we send out as garbage every day. This would reduce the demand on virgin sources of these materials and eliminate potentially severe environmental, economic, and public health problems such as ground and water contamination and air pollution.
Food waste includes uneaten portions of meals and trimmings from food preparation activities in kitchens, restaurants, and cafeterias. Most surprisingly? Nationally, food waste is the 3rd LARGEST component of generated waste by weight. According to a 2009 CT Solid Waste Composition and Characterization Study, 321,481 tons of food waste was disposed in CT.
Ummmm . . . . much of that 642,962,000 pounds could have been diverted through composting, bartering, and donations to food insecure populations through portals such as Shared Harvest.
In Connecticut, it costs about $68 to dispose of each ton of garbage
Garbage disposal is one of the most consumer-dependant and most easily modified sections of each of our town and municipal budgets. The reduction in tonnage sent to landfills will save hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, per city/town/municipality.
In the era of huge budget shortfalls, school cuts, disappearing public services, and the temporary closing of state agencies, we haven’t yet made the connection that composting, recycling, materials trading, and food trading can save your community money. Valuable money. Money that can keep your schools open. Money that can be kept in your municipality for improvements, upgrades, value-added services.
In short, someone has to pay for garbage. Why not spend a few extra minutes of your time to compost, grasscycle, trade and reuse materials to reduce the amount of stuff you throw away as garbage -- instead of using your tax dollars to dispose of it?
Connecticut Leads the Nation in Commodity Reuse
Want to reduce your garbage load? Here are two options:
Connecticut Material Trader
The Connecticut Material Trader (CMT) is a FREE online materials reuse network offered by the CT Department of Environmental Protection. It was conceived to help assists businesses, organizations, institutions, and municipalities in Connecticut find, sell, trade, or give away useful used or surplus materials that would otherwise be disposed as trash. Think of it as a dating service that matches usable goods with those who want them.
CMT members align corporate and environmental objectives by:
- reducing their environmental footprint,
- saving money,
- and providing fellow CMT members and others in need of low-to-no cost supplies, furniture, and equipment with the materials they need.
A wide variety of materials are accepted for posting on the exchange including building materials, office furniture/equipment, landscapting/nursery supplies, electronics, shipping containers, food residuals, and more.
If you are a CT business, organization, institution, or municipality – please consider joining CMT. More members mean more listings, and that means more usable items diverted from the waste stream! The actual exchange transactions are carried out directly between the interested parties.
Learn more about how the CT Material Trader works!
Buy Local Connecticut: Shared Harvest
Shared Harvest CT is a website provided by the Edibles Advocate Alliance that focuses on locally produced foods in a buy/sell/trade/barter/donate platform! Shared Harvest CT is a Local Food Web which builds a Sustainable Community Food System and allows consumers to find locally produced food in another (NON-farm market) venue, provide producers with a separate sales venue, and allow for the donation of food to those in need. Shared Harvest CT is a state-wide food distribution system allowing farmers, producers, and consumers to connect directly over the internet - in ONE interactive space and platform.
Shared Harvest CT is an online farmer's market and food-bank rolled into one. Food that might potentially go to waste can also be listed for donation to participating charities and food banks.
Shared Harvest CT works like an INSTANT ONLINE SELLING classified ad section and is available for FREE to all producers, farmers, and consumers.
Learn more about how Buy Local Connecticut: Shared Harvest works!
Buy Local Connecticut!
Trade Local Connecticut!
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According to the Scientific American, if we're worried about antibiotics in our beef, our vegetables may be no better. New studies show vegetables like lettuce and potatoes - even organic ones - may carry antibiotic residues. What should we expect, I suppose. We've pumped antibiotics into the animals we raise as food for more than 50 years - in fact, 70% of antibiotic use in the US is in the agriculture sector not at your doctor's office or hospital. The long term effect? One that you may not know about: these drugs are transferred to our vegetables through contaminated soil and compost.
Yes, compost. Even organic compost.
And health officials fear that eating vegetables laced with drugs meant to treat infections will increase antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria in our food, bodies, and environment. There have been direct studies linking antibiotic use in agriculture to an explosive rise in asthma and allergies in children over the last 20 years. Too, tainted manure impacts more than just the soil. Once applied to the land - either directly from that animal or transported via compost - these antibiotics seep into water supplies, wells, streams, rivers, oceans. It also contaminates mice, rabbits, foxes, and other wildlife that traverse farmland.
More than agriculture, we do it too!
And it's more than just the agricultural sector pumping pharmaceuticals into our food supply. 80% of streams tested by the United States Geological Survey are contaminated with OUR drugs like painkillers, hormones, and blood pressure medicines in addition to antibiotics. While we know these compounds exist in our water and then soil watered with that water: what we don't know is how all of these compounds react with each other or their cumulative effects individually or in combination - regardless of the dose size - in either the environment or in our bodies once we've ingested them.
According to a recent EPA study, 7 different pharmaceuticals and 2 personal care products were found in fish from 5 separate rivers in: Chicago, Dallas, Orlando, Phoenix, and West Chester. What did they find? Cholesterol lowering drugs, antihistamines, sedatives, blood pressure medication, epilepsy and bipolar drugs, Prozac, Zoloft, and two odor-enhancing ingredients in soap and hygiene products. This same study also found these drugs in the drinking water of Chicago and a dozen other cities.
We thought we were safe . . .
We think we're safe with organic food, but the USDA organic label does not require testing for antibiotic or hormone or pharmaceutical contamination of land, nor does it regulate raw/cooked compost or compost sources. Studies have confirmed that some USDA fruits and vegetables are also tainted with these drugs further muddying the "organic products are the best-of-the-best, most healthiest option we have" argument. Which is a shame because we turned to organics in the first place because of chemical contamination concerns. Little did we know that Monsanto Chemical Company continues to test and use recombinant bovine growth hormone in tilapia fish farming (bet you wondered where we are using rBGH now!), or that birth control pills and hormones used during menopause are causing the most damage to our wild fish populations.
What happens now that we know about pharmaceutical contamination?
According to Mother Earth News, There are more than 1,000 "active" ingredients currently being used in insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and other "cides" - all are products designed to kill some type of living thing. There are also about 4,000 additional chemicals in those products that manufacturers claim are "inert" ingredients. Federal law requires that companies reveal the active ingredients on the products' labels. But the law allows companies to conceal any ingredients they say are "inert," even though at least 374 inerts are known to be hazardous and another 1,863 were of unknown toxicity in 2006, when 22 advocacy groups and 15 state attorneys general petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to require disclosure of hazardous inerts. In fall 2009, the EPA announced it would pursue a change in disclosure rules for hazardous inert ingredients in pesticides. I hope they follow through - not only with information but with policy changes!
What does the future look like? What to do?
There is no debate: we simply must find a balance between consumer protection, animal health, welfare, and trade requirements concerning residues of pharmacologically active (and inactive) substances used in medicinal products used in food producing animals.
We could learn a lot from the European Commission, Vermont, and Germany. We could catch up on our reading. We need to really pay attention and GET TO KNOW OUR FARMERS and PRODUCERS. We need our local food supply to let us know more about their practices (good marketing and competitive differential there - hint, hint!). We need to learn as much as we can so that we can lobby for our defense. We can support organizations like the EWG who continues to help us stay informed. And more importantly, we can continue to have this discussion. The more we talk, the more solutions we just might find . . .
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What Is A Local Food Web?
A Food Web consists of the links between farmers and growers, processors, suppliers, local food shops, as well as other local food providers such as farmers markets, box schemes, community supported agriculture and food cooperatives, through to consumers.
A thriving Local Food Web benefits people, places and communities by:
- Creating new jobs and small businesses,
- Keeping local money in the local economy,
- Generating fewer food miles and less waste,
- Securing thriving business models for farmers and producers,
- Increasing access to fresh, healthy, affordable food, and
- Expanding consumer choice of where to shop and what to buy locally produced items.
Local food matters. It connects people to the land. It creates opportunities for farmers to provide food directly to their customers and helps communities increase their health, build local business distribution systems, preserve the environment, and solidify strong economic foundations.
The Local Food Web that the Edibles Advocate Alliance creates:
- Strengthens the fledgling self-sustaining and community-driven local food system, or interconnected 'web' that incorporates the agricultural needs and resources,
- Develops an understanding of where and how food is produced and sold,
- Brings people together to explore problems related to the availability of local food,
- Increases understanding of the benefits and ultimately demand for locally produced food,
- Encourage local communities to support their local food producers,
- Creates sustainable community food systems,
- Lays the foundation of a local food distribution system,
- Develops thriving local businesses and increases support for farming,
- Reduces food waste and combats food insecurity,
- Promotes economic development.
Emily Brooks & Edibles Advocate Alliance builds successful Local Food Webs and Sustainable Community Food Systems.
Want to learn more about how the EA Alliance can help you build YOUR Local Food Web?
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The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the USDA is drafting new meat testing regulations for small processors. It appears the new regulations will require before and after microbial testing and procedures that will be costly for state- and federally-inspected meat processors. The concern is these heavy-handed regulations may force small meat processors to reduce the number of products they offer, increase prices for processing, discontinue processing under inspection, or worse, shut down altogether.
"As drafted, these new regulations I believe will drive small meat processors out of business. Many will not be able to manage the financial or administrative burdens the new regulation will require. As a result, if these rules are put in place farmers' options will be further limited." - Mike Lorentz, Lorentz Meats, Cannon Falls, Minn.
According to the American Association of Meat Processors, the initial cost could be as much as $12,000 per product line and then $3,600 a year to maintain. Under these new rules, if a small meat processor offers 10 types of meat products (bacon, ham, jerky etc. ...), it could cost nearly $120,000 in testing and validation. For more on this issue, see the April 9 Des Moines Register article, "Meat Processors Worried Over Proposed Safety Rules."
Edibles Advocate Alliance's position:
Many livestock farmers rely on small meat processors in order to help get their product to market as well as add value to their meat products. We recognize that small and mid-sized farmers like John Morosani, butchers, and meat processors are key partners in making local and regional food systems work.
We have no reason to believe that these new rules will make meat products any safer, especially when you consider the majority of food-borne illness in meat products come from the giant corporate meatpackers like Smithfield, Tyson and JBS.
What we do believe is that the new regulations could hurt family farmers who rely on local butchers and small meat processors. Local and regional food systems are growing and the last thing we need is new USDA regulations that will place roadblocks or result in higher costs for all parties involved in selling butchered or processed livestock.
Will you stand with us?
We do not believe that ONE SIZE FITS ALL.
We believe in food safety. We believe that the US Department of Agriculture has the right intent in proposing new rules to ensure that meat lockers are keeping dangerous bacteria out of our food products. We believe that the USDA and the Department of Agriculture should continue in their efforts to protect consumers, BUT . . .
We believe that these proposed rules open a wide gap for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations and other Agribusiness Lobbyists to succeed in crushing small-scale farms, producers, and businesses.
We believe in fairness.
We believe in supporting local and sustainable food systems.
We believe in supporting our local farmers, small businesses, and producers.
The Agribusiness Lobbyists who dominate the food industry may have a lot more money - many more strategically elected "friends" - but WE are a tenacious, passionate, and resolute people.
We will refuse to let our small farms suffer by EASY, one-size-fits-all regulations without our voices being heard.
Protect consumers. Protect our farms, our local processors, and our neighborhood producers.
WE BELIEVE that the right legislation can accomplish BOTH.
TAKE ACTION!
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Call USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack at 202-720-3631 He needs to know how these proposed rules could negatively impact local and regional food systems and family farmers. These new guidelines run
absolutely counter to the
"Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" campaign USDA had been trumpeting.
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Submit comments. USDA is accepting comments on the new rules through June 19, 2010. Farmers are encouraged to submit comments on the draft validation compliance guide. Below are two ways to send comments, as well as a sample comment you can make:
- Docket Clerk USDA
FSIS, Room 2-2127
5601 Sunnyside Avenue
Beltsville, MD 20705
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Recently, I sat down with Winter Caplanson of the Coventry Regional Farmers' Market in Connecticut. Called "One of the Top Ten things to do this weekend!" by the Boston Globe, I wondered if Winter could share their story, and her thoughts behind their successful growth over the last 8 years.
The Coventry Regional Farmers' Market is the strongest and most influential farm market in all of Connecticut.
Their opening day? June 6th. You had better believe that I'll be there!
How did the Coventry Market get started?
A few forces converged. Coventry's Town Manager, John Elsessor, was interested in having a market in town. Jean Nelson, his intern at the time, had done research on the locations in town that might work best. Carole Miller and Winter Caplanson had been vendors at other farmers' markets and felt it was possible to create a market more like the Brattleboro, VT market... a destination market that is a cultural and community hub. Dick Giggey, a long-standing Coventry activist, was dreaming about a market like the Ithaca, NY market. With the Town Manager's support, Jean, Dick, Carole, and Winter drafted friends and family to form a committee to explore the possibilities of a market in Coventry. About 10 months later, we opened. We will begin our seventh season on opening day, June 6, 2010.
How have you strategically grown and adapted to meet both consumer and vendor needs?
For several years now, we have conducted an extensive customer survey at the conclusion of the season. Customer suggestions and preferences lay our roadmap for annual improvements and additions to the market.
Our customers have a strong preference for food grown without chemicals and each year we have added a Certified Organic grower as well as Certified Naturally-Grown and Farmers' Pledge growers so that the market is now predominantly offering food grown without chemicals. Our growers are nimble and add varieties of produce customers suggest.
Customers value the quality and diversity of products in the market. Our largest growth area has been the continued addition of wonderful, specialty foods produced in Connecticut: salsa, pesto, fresh pasta and sauces, handmade chocolates, granola, coffee, seasoning blends, olive oil and balsamic, herbal and flavored vinegars, ice cream, and more.
Customers asked for more meats, cheeses dairy and can now buy local, naturally-raised beef, pork, chicken, turkey, and lamb as well as eggs, bacon, sausage, kielbasa and seafood caught off Connecticut shores. We have 4 excellent cheese makers and a dairy offering milk, yogurt, and butter.
Customers wanted to buy local foods in the wintertime. Last year our WinterFresh Market debuted and was very popular and well-attended.
When customers request a local product we don't have available in the market, we recruit the best producer in the state. We are able to lure these amazing vendors because we are able to assure them that our customers are eager to buy their product. We track sales and attendance and can give vendors an idea of the potential for direct sales at the market. We do not over saturate the market with any product. We seek out the best producers and do everything possible to ensure they have strong sales at our market.
How has the community reacted to the Coventry Farmers' Market? How has their awareness of our local food supply grown?
Community support has been consistently strong. Word of mouth has always been our best advertisement. We aim to exceed customer expectations. It's not unusual for a customer, upon visiting our market for the first time, to stand open mouthed and look a little stunned, gazing out at the huge, bustling market. "I'd heard the Coventry market was great but LOOK at this..." they wonder aloud. They come back... with friends.
As the market started to draw larger and larger crowds, we outgrew our first location and decided to defy conventional wisdom and move the market to a larger site that had virtually no visibility, low drive by traffic and was on winding back roads. Almost everyone felt the need to tell us that the move would be a disaster, that our customers would never find us.
But when opening day came, the line of traffic looked like a scene from Field of Dreams. Our counters estimated 5,000 people came to the market that day. Traffic was jammed and there was a 45 minute wait just to get into the market parking lot. They found us, all right!
Our draw has grown. Currently about 50% of market-goers drive more than half an hour to get to the market, some from Litchfield or Fairfield county and even out of state. Even in a down economy, most market-goers reported spending more at the market last year. They are voting with their dollars for local food, for our market to succeed. It's wonderful!
Any advice or lessons learned you'd like to pass on to others as they grow the regional food systems in their communities?
There is strength in numbers: We believe our success is rooted in the strength of our committee. We have about a dozen committee members with an extremely diverse skill set. We have retired cops, a farmer, a bank CFO, an event-planner... and we're big on networking to draw in additional support like the 50 or so Friends of the Market who are volunteer workers each summer. We can get a lot done because there are so many of us.
Define your niche: Ours is the market that is known as being "Like a country fair every Sunday." That's our niche and we aim to be the best at that. Every Sunday has a theme related to agriculture: Old fashioned Corn Roast, Garlic and Herb Festival, etc. All events, exhibits, and demonstrations are organized around that theme. It means each Sunday offers not only a full and diverse farmers' market, the state's largest, but also a festival atmosphere with a distinct flavor.
We were pretty creative and maybe even unrealistic when we dreamt up our "destination" market and had a vision for its niche. Taking a step back, Coventry is NOT Ithaca or Brattleboro, and it was pretty ambitious to this we could have a market like those places. Maybe it's a good thing none of us had ever run a farmers' market before!
Move in directions that excite you: We have remained passionate and energized because we choose to grow and evolve in ways that excite us as organizers. For example, each year the committee is presented with loads of great event ideas. We decide which we will choose because an individual member is excited by an event idea and steps forward to take on responsibility for making it happen. This year's June Bug Jamboree, Graze Fest, Autumn Soup Social, and Harvest Pickin' & Bluegrass Jam are all new events whose organizers are really excited to bring them to life. Ideas that have had their day fall by the wayside, while concepts like our new Insider Tours and year long "To Market" photo project come to the forefront.
What struggles still exist as we work to getting more local food onto plates?
Farmers' markets have some of the same struggles that small businesses do. We both need regulations and legislation that nurtures us and supports our growth to allow us to fuel the local economy in a sustainable way. Even successful farmers' markets can be threatened by issues like health department permit fee increases. Several markets in the state are looking at permit fee increases of nearly 1000%. Liability insurance for the market can be costly. Finding and keeping hold of a suitable location is a challenge and site rental fees may rise beyond what a market can afford. Dealing this kind of stuff can wear organizers down and put the future of the market in jeopardy.
Communities need to honor the value of farmers' markets: increasing access to healthy, local foods; sustaining current farmers and growing new ones; keeping farmland open and productive... plus the social aspects of a community gathering, sharing of ideas, increasing foot traffic, positive PR for a town and site. Expect those things from a farmers' market... and support them so they can make it happen.
Coventry Regional Farmer's Market: 2010 Events
All events are free and open to the public!
And CT's LOCAL HEROES who will be at the Coventry Market?
With an average of 45 vendors per day... a full roster of regular vendors plus guest vendors from around the state . . . . . you're sure to find just about anything you could ever possibly need!
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According to Wikipedia, there are two main forms of coffee beans that we brew to drink around here. One is the highly regarded Coffea arabica, and the 'robusta' form of the hardier Coffea canephora. The latter is resistant to the devastating coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix). Both are cultivated primarily in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Once ripe, coffee berries are picked, processed, and dried. The seeds are then roasted to varying degrees, depending on the desired flavor. They are then ground and brewed to create coffee.
Robusta coffee beans are considered a "low class" poor man's drink. It has been called worse than chicory, trailer-trash brew for uneducated Wal-Mart workers. According to Coffee Review, Robusta coffees are rotten with poor quality and are bland at best, and Arabica coffees are exquisitely refined, pure golden liquid of the gods.
Coffee from Robusta beans are scoffed, dismissed as garbage by self-proclaimed elite gourmands who read expensive magazines that offer advice as to which coffee brew is considered more socially elite.
So what will happen when climate change affects Arabica crops throughout Central America?
Robusta plants are hearty and can tolerate great shifts in temperature and rainfall, whereas Arabica plants are akin to squealing divas - unhappy little piglets - that wither and sob every time there is one extra degree, or one less rain drop. These plants need to be pampered with crooning cabana boys, massages, foot rubs, and Feng Shui.
According to a recent story on NPR, Arabica coffee growers are struggling to keep their plants alive.
Climate change is forcing these growers to make one of two options:
- Shift to growing and producing Robusta coffee beans, OR
- Clearing more mountain tops to move all of the Arabica coffee plantations to higher elevations (until we run out of mountain top space, anyway)
Will climate change affect our gourmet palate? Will we start to see articles praising Robusta brews? Can we find adventurous chefs and food writers who can sway our lemming-like public buying habits with Pro-Robusta soliloquies?
Or, will our gourmet palate affect climate change? Will we stick our self-absorbed noses in the air, refusing to purchase trailer-trash "low class" sludge, and continue to demand Arabica beans?
Realize that if you do, millions of forest acres will have to be cleared just to satisfy your sense of entitlement to something that your palate is not sophisticated enough to tell the damn difference between anyway.
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According to their marketing strategy and according to our lemming-like perceptions, Toyota has long been the leader in environmental sustainability.
Is it true? NOPE.
Being a sustainable business has nothing to do with what you "say" you do - it has nothing to do with your marketing strategy. Being a sustainable business - both in longevity and in positive social and environmental impact - is 100% dependant on your daily, conscious decisions.
According to Toyota, "Green. That's how we'd like the world to be. As an environmental leader, Toyota does more than meet industry standards - we seek to raise them. Along with our partners, we're working toward a future where a wide range of innovative vehicle and fuel technologies and infrastructures converge to create an economically vibrant, mobile society in harmony with the environment."
Under this new definition, is Toyota an environmental leader? Again, NOPE.
Why? Toyota makes the same bad decision 100 times and gets caught 3 times. Those are good odds as far as they're concerned.
Toyota has recalled their truck lines every year since 1987. They started recalling the 2004-2010 Toyota Tacoma back in late September for the same accelerator problem that their cars have. They've recalled massive quantities of Toyota trucks over the last 23 years (YES, 23 years) for:
- Faulty headlights made from "parts sold for use as aftermarket equipment."
- Defective trailer hitches (I'm sorry, but that's scarry!)
- Deffective fuel system & gasoline delivery hoses which would cause the trucks to explode in a side-impact accident
- Faulty driver-side seatbelts that don't work
- Randomly exploding airbags which sent people to the hospital and caused multiple accidents
- Incorrect load carrying capacity for the tire selection and rims in 2009 and 2010 cars and trucks because vehicles were being overloaded and crashing
The list goes on and on . . . . . .
Interesting to note that most of the truck recalls since 1987 were due to NOT meeting the US Federal Guidelines for Safety. There have also been multiple recalls on different Toyota the vehicles made the same year. Toyota knew about their accelerator problems - they've been installing them in the Toyota Tundra and the Toyota Tacoma since the end of 1995. And yet . . . what? Let's keep putting those faulty accelerator problems in all of our cars too and hope nobody notices?
Another unsustainable decision? Toyota recalled HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Tacoma trucks from 1995-2000 because they skipped the steps of protecting the body of the vehicle from excessive corrosion. Oops. They promised to fix the problem on the assembly line. Three years later, Toyota had to recall HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Tundras made after 2000 for the SAME problem.
Here's a question for you: where are all of these faulty parts coming from? Third-world countries all over the world. And, once removed, where are all of these recalled vehicles with their faulty parts going? Our landfills.
Toyota should be paying tariffs, taxes, and international fines for dumping waste in American territory.
All of this on top of the little-discussed fact that we buy hybrid cars thinking that they're good for the environment when in fact they're made with nickel-lead-lithium metal hydride batteries - a corrosive carcinogenic - that goes into our landfills, into our water supply, our food supply and our children.
Toyota is very clever. They don't really have to do the right thing for the environment.
They just have to tell us that they do, and we'll nod and smile and go out and buy their products.
When we see a Toyota on the road, we should say "Oh look at that good citizen!" We could (justifiably) say "Look at that poor yoke who didn't do their homework and got duped!"
Why aren't Toyota owners more angry? Why aren't they revolting? They thought they were doing the right thing - buying from the right company - and now they have to kill off all of our fish, dump lead into our food supply, and send their loved ones to the hospital with neurological damage just to get rid of their purchase.
But when our own government defends Toyota saying that "it is unfortunate and unfair that Toyota has fallen victim to aggressive and questionable news coverage" (would that be a blog post like this one?) I guess we really don't have to fix the core problem, really educate consumers on companies that practice what they preach, or hold Toyota liable for their marketing antics that continuously prove to be untrue.
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Environmentally-friendly . . . blah, blah, blah. We've heard about it and we nod and smile in mere recognition with an abstract awareness of something that is supposed to be a good thing.
The reality is that most of us have good intentions. But don't good intentions pave the road to hell? Yeah sure, we buy those nifty light bulbs, and we're mostly good at recycling. We follow popular culture and its media swoon which makes "environmentally friendly" the new, ubiquitous, poorly defined slang-du-jour. We'll buy something if it is colored brown and green and says it is "environmentally friendly" on the label without really understanding what makes a product environmentally friendly or that those words (and packaging color scheme) are the hottest marketing trends since the word "healthy" or the completely invented food category called "all natural."
Casting good intentions aside, is it actually possible to ACTUALLY BE climate-smart? Climate Pilots is an interesting live snapshot of 4 households who are actually trying to BE "environmentally friendly" utilizing those words as a VERB and not merely descriptive adjectives. These individuals are actively learning (yes, key words in this sentence) what it means to learn how and why to life a climate-smart lifestyle through direct lessons in food, time usage, energy, and transportation.
So, which Environmental Bandwagon - which "eco-friendly" bus would you like to take? The one that has pretty colors and media catch phrases, or the one that forces you on a learning journey to understand our finite planet and our daily actions and provides for you a discerning eye through which to make sound, qualified decisions?
Follow the Climate Pilots, and learn along with them as they grow in awareness of what it means to use "environmentally friendly" as an action verb.
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In 2009, "Global" became the most bantered, misunderstood, and most overused adjective. We have "global challenges" that require "global agreements" with "global alliances."
Janet Daley thinks that "global" thinking won't necessarily solve the world's problems.
Thinking of problems in a global context endangers the fundamentally basic principles of accountability - the accountability of our own actions to our immediate environments, and the accountability of our elected officials to our country and with our engagement with other world leaders.
There are no "global challenges." Many countries and many individuals may face the same issues. Labeling a challenge or an impending issue as a "global" one means that we assume that my contributory actions are the same actions of everyone who faces the same issue, that my reparative responses must be identical to the responses of everyone else in every other country, and that we must have a 100% consensus of agreement to which remedial responses every country on the planet will choose -- regardless of the differences in our societies, our political governance, or our cultural norms and values.
The idea that our elected officials might not necessarily need to take action because an issue is a "global challenge" is scapegoat with a capital S.
Requiring "global responses" to our impending issues leads to an apathetic "Well it's not MY fault!" mentality. If my country doesn't agree with Zimbabwe, and if Zimbabwe doesn't agree with Israel, and Israel doesn't agree with Columbia - then neither Zimbabwe, Israel, or Columbia should take any corrective action yet to resolve our "global issues" until they all agree.
Regardless of the adjective-du-jour, the bottom line is that we are ALL ACCOUNTABLE FOR OUR OWN ACTIONS.
No clever shift in linguistics will ever absolve us of that fundamental fact. On the home front, we are equally apathetic. We know what problems face our society and we wait to employ better, corrective decisions in our daily lives while our elected leaders attend world summits.
Climate change, high obesity rates, bank collapses, the mortgage crisis . . . . . . . . What have we do to contribute to these problems and what are we going to do to take corrective action? At home? In our businesses? In our neighborhoods?
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